Bears hiring former Tulane and Saints coach Curtis Johnson

The Bears have dipped into the college ranks to fill out their new offensive coaching staff.

According to Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune, the Bears are hiring former Tulane head coach Curtis Johnson to coach their wide receivers.

Johnson was 15-34 in four seasons at Tulane, but had previously coached receivers for the Saints (as part of their Super Bowl run) and at the University of Miami. He’s replacing Mike Groh, who left to become the passing game coordinator for the Rams.

The Bears are also dealing with the departure of coordinator Adam Gase to become the head coach of the Dolphins, promoting quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains to coordinator and hiring Dave Ragone to coach quarterbacks.

When Johnson gets to Chicago, he’ll have an interesting job on his hands. The free agent status of Alshon Jeffery remains to be seen, but last year’s first-rounder Kevin White hasn’t played a snap yet because of injury, so he’s a clean slate.

When he was the Saints he turned Marcus Colston from a disaster during OTA’s to a starter by the end of training camp. He also turned Devery Henderson into a solid WR after he had struggled to get on the field in his early years. He turned Lance Moore into a very solid WR after he was picked from the Browns practice squad.

He deserves a shot at being an OC with how excellent he’s been at developing receivers, but that usually doesn’t happen for guys like that. It’s probably why he went and took that crappy Tulane job. But let’s get some more people’s children promoted to coach QBs and to become OCs so we can have another batch of young pathetic HCs for the future.